Reports of a nuclear explosion in North Korea are, according to the Beeb, being played down by the US and South Korea:
The blast in Yanggang Province, close to the Chinese border, is said to have happened on Thursday as the Stalinist state celebrated its National Day.
The blast created what officials in Seoul say was a peculiar-shaped cloud.
As the secretive North stays silent on the blast, a visiting UK minister has asked for an urgent explanation.
This (via lgf) provides some more detail:
The explosion happened at 11 a.m. Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China, Yonhap said.
“We understand that a mushroom-shaped cloud about 3.5 to 4 kilometers (2.1 to 2.5 miles) in diameter was monitored during the explosion,” the news agency quoted an unidentified diplomatic source in Seoul, the South Korean capital, as saying.
Yonhap quoted an unidentified South Korean official as saying seismic activity related to two blasts in North Korea occurred at 11 p.m. Wednesday and 1 a.m. Thursday.
The damage and crater left by the explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county was big enough to be noticed by a satellite, Yonhap quoted an unidentified source in Beijing as saying.
The agency said the diplomatic source raised the possibility of a nuclear text blast or an accidental explosion. It quoted a source in Washington as saying the incident could be related to a natural disaster such as a forest fire.
Update: The Marmot’s Hole has good coverage.
Leave a Reply